


Twinquisition

by HeideeKae



Series: Twinquisition [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Beginnings, Sisters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 18:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19447120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeideeKae/pseuds/HeideeKae
Summary: Two sisters, one destiny.





	Twinquisition

River’s fingersbrushed along the cold, dank stones beneath her. She trembled, just a little, searching for Sky, her sister. Her head leaned back, brushing against something -- someone. When at last she clasped her hand around another, her sister cried and flinched away.

“Sky?” she whispered, voice cracking in her dry throat.

Hazy light filtered through the darkness. It glanced off the ends of drawn swords pointed for them. 

_ What did we get into, now? _

River tried to sit straighter, her head pounding and her heart beginning to race, and forced herself to remember...  _ remember _ what put them in this dark cell. A rabbit cooking on a spit, hiding her bow in the forest but sheathing a knife in her boot,  _ just in case, _ she’d said to her sister,  _ your magic can’t protect us in there. _ The summit, the meeting between Mages and Templars.  _ Who cares about the Human problems _ , Sky had argued with their Keeper.  _ The south is cold, and we haven’t heard from any of the clans.  _ That was the problem, of course, and they couldn’t risk sending the Keeper alone... but the twins, the First, and a worldly hunter, they could go unnoticed. They could...

River’s mind ached. They went unnoticed in the Human’s temple, but...

Sky groaned and magic crackled, echoing off the walls of stone and the metal bars of the surrounding cells. River tried to turn to her, but before she could reach her sister, angry footsteps approached and swung open the locked door.

Two women, River made out by their silhouettes from the brighter, warmer light in the hall behind them. One of them moved like she was liquid, slinking silently around the room with piercing eyes. The other, to call her intimidating would have been understating it. River curled inward, closer to the comfort of her sister.

The muscular woman stopped a few steps in front of River, staring at her with the coldest steel glare River had ever seen. Then she snapped it away and bore it into the back of Sky’s head. She took a long step around to their side, and snarled, “Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.”

Sky stirred, pulling her hands close to her chest. She blinked hard against the darkness, scowling up at the Human.

“What?” River muttered.

“The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead,” she paced closer and bent near enough they could feel her breath. “Except for you two.”

Sky shuffled away, glaring hard at the ground.

River’s heart jumped into her throat. “All those people?” She gasped. “Dead?”

The broad woman sneered down at River before swooping upon Sky. She snatched up one of her hands, twisting her arm painfully. “Explain this!”

Magic sparked from Sky’s palm, but it wasn’t fire or any natural light that River could place. It surged from an open wound in her palm, a wound that bled pure magic instead of blood.

Sky grit her teeth and winced, summoning her strength to pull back. “I can’t!”

“What do you mean you can’t?!” she barked.

“We don’t know what that is!” River lurched closer.

Sky sneered. “Much less, how it got there.”

“You’re  _ lying _ !” The interrogator reached for Sky again, and her sword at her hip.

River writhed to her sister’s side just as the other woman intercepted, pushing her back with only a hand. She watched their steps, and it was clear enough to her which woman was actually in control.

“We need them, Cassandra,” the mysterious woman warned, voice clear as birdsong, then turned to the girls. “Do you remember what happened? How this began?”

River watcher her sister as her face twisted. She knew the expression, she’d seen her sister focused a thousand times before.

“I remember... running,” she finally said. “There were these  _ things  _ chasing us. And then...”

“A woman?” River added, quietly. She remembered the being of light, too.

“A woman,” repeated the softer woman, her eyes flashing behind her the shadow cast by her hood. She exchanged a look with Cassandra, who rubbed at her forehead.

Cassandra sighed. “Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take them to the rift.”

Without another word, Leliana strode past with all the elegance of a twirling dagger. Leaving them with Cassandra and the guards.

“What did happen?” River asked, hushed.

For the first time since they woke, Sky met her sister’s gaze and found her own fear mirrored.

Cassandra grabbed each by the arm and hefted them to their uneasy feet. “It... will be easier to show you.”

The guards went first, tromping into the narrow hall in two rows. Sky and River fell in behind them, and Cassandra followed with hand on the hilt of her sword.

River leaned in close to Sky, eyeing the green glow in her sister’s palm now that there was light to see it. “What is that?” She whispered.

Sky shrugged, pleading with her eyes.

“It will make sense soon,” Cassandra said, her powerful voice echoing.

“Where are you taking us, Cassandra?” River asked.

“We are in Haven,” she answered, stiffly. “The village outside the Temple of Sacred Ashes... what’s left of it, at least.”

“What’s left?” Sky balked.

“And you will address me as Seeker,” Cassandra growled, shoving Sky forward when she lagged.

Cassandra ushered them up the stairs, into the Chantry packed with injured refugees and praying Sisters. Sky glared ahead at the ground, and tried to ignore the heated stares from anyone who took notice of the procession.

Whispers circulated around them, Humans pointing and gasping. “It’s the prisoners! With Seeker Pentaghast!”

“Pentaghast?” River repeated. “The Right Hand of the Divine?”

Cassandra scoffed, but said nothing.

“I’m River Lavellan,” she insisted. “This is my sister, Sky.”

Sky hissed at her to be quiet.

The soldiers swung open the Chantry doors and poured intense light from the snowy mountainside against their faces, making Sky wince away and River lift a hand to cover her eyes. Cassandra urged them through the threshold.

The Elven sisters stumbled through the loose snow on the path, flakes brushing their cheeks and sticking to their lashes. They kept close, a habit since birth, and their hands found each other. This time, Sky did not pull away.

And when they looked up, they saw it. The eye of a hurricane in the sky, bleeding light from green veins that ran in all directions. The sky itself was cracked open. Fear stunned River to be still, and Sky stared unblinking, gawking at the heavens.

“We call it ‘the Breach,’” Cassandra said, glowering at the snow around her feet. “It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift, oh no. Just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

“An explosion can do that?” River blurted.

Cassandra snapped her attention to the Elven sisters. “This one did,” she uncrossed her arms and stepped closer, maintaining her steely gaze on them. “Unless we act, the Breach may grow until... it swallows the world.”

Sky only just heard the last of the Seeker’s words before a thunderous crack resounded in the sky, and filled her ears with ringing. Pain lanced her arm and shot from wrist to elbow to her spine, then lit all her nerves on fire. She cried out, dropped to her knees, but heard and felt neither. River knelt at her sister’s side and steadied her as best she could, her eyes locked on the green energies flaring like explosions in the palm of her sister’s left hand.

It was no coincidence. Whatever was happening to the Breach was happening to Sky, as well. River’s blood ran cold.

Tears dried in the corners of Sky’s eyes as sense gradually returned to her. She labored through her breathing, aware of her sister and the Seeker who dropped down to her eye level.

Seeker Pentaghast levelled a stern finger at the young woman. “Each time the Breach expands, your mark grows,” the two locked eyes. “And it is killing you.”

Shock numbed River’s body, stalled her heart beat, breathing, and blinking. Her twin, the sister she’d known since birth... was dying?

Sky grit her teeth and snarled, “You still think I did this? To myself?”

Cassandra pressed harder and closed in. “Not intentionally. _Something_ clearly went wrong.”

_ Something like us being here at all,  _ Sky thought to herself. “And if I’m not responsible?”

“Someone is, and you are our only suspect. You wish to prove your innocence? This is the only way. Your mark may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time,” Cassandra said.

“It may be the key?” River asked. “To doing what, exactly?”

“Closing the Breach. Whether that’s possible is something we shall discover shortly. It is our only chance, however... And yours.”

Cassandra watched Sky intently, and she opened her mouth to respond, but River spoke over her, something that she was accustomed to doing when they spoke with the Humans. “We understand. If we can help then... Then we will.”

“We?” Cassandra repeated, this time without a sneer.

“Sky is my sister. I’ll do what I can to save her life. Whatever it takes.”

Cassandra sized up the blonde Elf as she rose to her feet. Whatever she turned over in her mind was a mystery to River, but never-the-less, the Seeker gave one nod of approval before reaching under Sky’s arm and hefting the scrawny Elf to her feet. Their eyes met as Sky steadied herself, regaining sensation in her legs, and then they marched on.

The survivor’s camp that waited in Haven was scattered with healers and injured as numerous as the snowflakes. And all their eyes fell on the three of them as they cut a path between the tents. Each glare fell on River’s face and Sky’s hands. Sky watched her feet, and River watched the crowd with wide eyes as the murmurs of gossip carried on the wind.

“They have decided your guilt,” the Seeker told them in a hushed voice. “They need it. The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, Head of the Chantry.”

“So that means, the Divine is...” River muttered. She had heard of the Human religion. She knew some of its terms. And she certainly knew what mourning meant.

“The Conclave was hers,” Cassandra continued. “It was a chance for peace between mages and templars. She brought their leaders together. Now they are dead.”

As they cleared the pitched tents, the creak of great doors opening interrupted her voice. They’d come to a bridge that took them out of Haven, manned by guards that hadn’t expected to see the Seeker with the prisoners both in tow. Perhaps they thought she took them to execution, or trial. Maybe they faced that and worse.

“We lash out like the sky,” Cassandra brought them through the gate and stopped them. “But we must think beyond ourselves. As she did. Until the Breach is sealed.”

She drew a blade from her side. River flinched. Sky’s nostrils flared.

“There will be a trial,” she said. “I can promise no more.”

Cassandra took their bindings one at a time, and sliced through the ropes.

River turned her hands over, and Sky clutched her marked one close to her chest. 

“Come,” Cassandra turned and began to lead them across the walkway. “It is not far.”

“Where are you taking us?” Sky demanded after her.

Cassandra turned her head over her shoulder, but did not stop. “Your mark must be tested on something smaller than the Breach,” she said casually.

Sparing only a look between them, Sky and River took off to keep up with the Seeker.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> In canon, my Inquisitors Sky and River live in a world where the other one died. Losing a sister sent them on a path that eventually made them Inquisitor. But in this AU, neither of them died and they went to the Conclave together. With this project, I'm genuinely just writing it for fun and thought that maybe someone out there might think it was fun, too. I might occasionally go off-script, but the theme will be the same and I'll be as true to the characters as I can with my understanding of them.


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